Cocteau Films Come to Hofstra David S
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Cocteau Films Come to Hofstra David S. Pushkin Assistant Professor New College his October, with the assistance of a We thank the Florence Gould pictures. Kinetoscope parlours were Tgenerous gift from the Florence Foundation for recognizing the special opened in American cities in 1894. In Gould Foundation, the Hofstra Cultural opportunity, 40 years posthumously, to 1895 Charles Pathé brought this Center presented “A Pen of Light: examine the films of Jean Cocteau, and technology to Paris. On September 28, The Films of Jean Cocteau.” the Hofstra Cultural Center for its 1895, the first projection of films to a Commemorating the 40th anniversary commitment to create this event. The paying audience was given at the Grand of Cocteau’s death, the conference is timing of this conference afforded us the Café, Boulevard des Capucines in Paris both a film retrospective and an chance to understand Cocteau as an (O’Leary 11). Cocteau was 6 years old. exchange of new ideas. New College and the Hofstra Museum The work of Jean Cocteau was had significant roles as supporters influenced by early cinema, by the and instigators in the phonograph, the telephone and the development of “A Pen of Light microphone. The early Cocteau was …” The Hofstra Museum holds a thoroughly modern. He reinvented collection of artwork by Jean the Greek chorus into a single, Cocteau that has not been sometimes mechanical voice (Ade exhibited until now. This is an apt 2). He used devices such as doppel- excuse for an exhibition, but why gangers and mirrors in his fiction as a film retrospective? a bridge between natural and supernatural worlds. For Cocteau, Jean Cocteau was a poet. He machinery also served as a practiced his poetry in many transforming device between two mediums; film was only one. He worlds. Imagine the hallucinatory was an interdisciplinary artist, effect of merging reflections on the who searched for the clearest windows of passing trains (Wall- voice in each of the Romana 6). disciplines/mediums in which he worked. He claimed never to mix Cocteau wrote poems and a novel mediums, but rather to explore about World War I. His own each in its purest sense. In this experience was that of a volunteer way he treated artistic media as ambulance attendant. He admired disciplines. Cocteau wrote poems, soldiers and airmen and was novels, librettos and plays, and intrigued by airplanes. made drawings, films, murals, Jean Cocteau, Jean Marais and Josette Day during shooting of Beauty and the Beast (1945). mosaics, paintings and ceramics. Cocteau was an active participant in artist whose life and career were shaped the development of the avant-garde in The work of Jean Cocteau combines a by the same forces that we may Paris. He flirted with the dadaists and keen understanding of the deep encounter: new technologies, war, befriended painters, musicians, writers, relationship between creative arts and political crises and paradigm shifts. composers, playwrights and poets from humanities. New College provides both Montmartre and Montparnasse. Hofstra University with such a focused Jean Cocteau was born in 1889, the Essentially always a society poet, diversity. Perhaps “inter-relation” more same year that Thomas Edison and Cocteau took advantage of the accurately describes the interdiscipli- W. K.L. Dickson were taking pictures patronage system. From 1929 until 1932 nary approach taken at New College. with their new camera called the he completed a commission by the Jean Cocteau would have made an Kinetograph. The following year their Vicomte Charles de Noailles to create excellent New College faculty member. Kinetoscope machine enabled the first his first well-known film, “The Blood of viewing of successive “moving” a Poet.” 8 In the same year (1929) he entered a clin- a modest fee at the end of the war as a For Carole, the real Cocteau was a man ic to cure from an opium addiction. While gift from her father to her mother of joyous creative inspiration. “Jean in the clinic he completed his for surviving the Holocaust. Her Cocteau never stopped working,” she second novel, Les enfants terribles or The grandmother perished in Auschwitz. explained. “He was always drawing.” Holy Terrors. It was 10 years from the completion of The Blood of a Poet before Carole Weisweiller’s presence at our The Hofstra Cultural Center, Hofstra Cocteau worked on another film. Cocteau conference was instrumental in bringing Museum and New College of Hofstra won favors in Nazi-occupied Paris. He us in contact with a Jean Cocteau that University in cooperation with the Film wrote the screenplays for The Phantom was more than enigma. We were able to and Liberal Arts Departments at Rhode Baron in 1942 and The Eternal Return in feel the human side of an artist whose Island School of Design, the Florence 1943 then continued to make his own reputation may or may not have Gould Foundation, Cultural Services of film, Beauty and the Beast, in 1945-46. survived the war. Carole Weisweiller the French Embassy in New York, the helps Cocteau survive through a clearer French Institute Alliance Française and He received negative criticism in the understanding of his work and a closer the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Vichy press during the war. After the proximity to his person. Long Island, hosted the conference “A war he was exonerated of collabo- Pen of Light: The Films of Jean ration with the Germans. Though Cocteau” from October 1 to 4, 2003. he maintained friendships on both sides, Cocteau remained true to The program included screenings of his own muse. Beauty and the Beast all of Cocteau’s own films and most became one of the first examples of the films for which he wrote the of film d’auteur, or a film to be screenplays. We also included known by its director. (Hitchcock screenings of three documentaries films reached this status in about Cocteau, including one he the 1950s.) made himself called La Villa Santo Sospir. The conference covered Jean Cocteau created most of his topics such as experimental film, films between 1946 and 1950. surrealism, romanticism, classicism, Each year he turned one of his behind the scenes during film plays into a film. The most famous production and psychological, was Orpheus in 1949. In 1950 he mythical and political interpretation. successfully collaborated with director Jean-Pierre Melville to The conference began on bring his novel Les enfants terribles Wednesday, October 1, with the to the screen. The star of the film, opening of an exhibition of Nicole Stéphane, was named photographs in the Rochelle and the Hofstra Cultural Center’s Irwin A. Lowenfeld Conference and Joseph G. Astman Distinguished Exhibition Hall on the 10th floor of Conference Artist. the Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library titled “In the Eye of the Madame Stéphane, whose real Camera: Jean Cocteau in the South name was Nicole de Rothschild, of France.” Both contributors of the produced the film with the help of work in the show, Madame Carole her cousin Alec Weisweiller. Alec’s Weisweiller and photographer wife, Francine, became a close Jean Marais and Josette Day from Lucien Clergue, were present at friend of Jean Cocteau and became Beauty and the Beast (1946). the reception. On Thursday, his last important patron. Cocteau spent Carole was 8 years old during the October 3, the conference banquet fea- much of his time in the 1950s at the making of Les enfants terribles, which tured a guest appearance by composer Weisweiller home in the south of was filmed in a house that was built by Ned Rorem, whose own work takes France, la villa Santo Sospir. her great-grandparents, lost during the inspiration from Cocteau and who also war and then reclaimed by her father collaborated with Cocteau in his two Madame Carole Weisweiller was one of from the government after the war. She compositions “Visits to St. Elizabeth’s” the keynote speakers at the Hofstra spent her adolescent years watching and “Anna la bonne.” “Anna la bonne” Cultural Center conference. She told us Cocteau fill her home with murals, was performed at the conference ban- that villa Santo Sospir was purchased for mosaics, tapestries and ceramics. quet by Hofstra student Elisa 9 In the same year (1929) he entered a clin- a modest fee at the end of the war as a For Carole, the real Cocteau was a man ic to cure from an opium addiction. While gift from her father to her mother of joyous creative inspiration. “Jean in the clinic he completed his for surviving the Holocaust. Her Cocteau never stopped working,” she second novel, Les enfants terribles or The grandmother perished in Auschwitz. explained. “He was always drawing.” Holy Terrors. It was 10 years from the completion of The Blood of a Poet before Carole Weisweiller’s presence at our The Hofstra Cultural Center, Hofstra Cocteau worked on another film. Cocteau conference was instrumental in bringing Museum and New College of Hofstra won favors in Nazi-occupied Paris. He us in contact with a Jean Cocteau that University in cooperation with the Film wrote the screenplays for The Phantom was more than enigma. We were able to and Liberal Arts Departments at Rhode Baron in 1942 and The Eternal Return in feel the human side of an artist whose Island School of Design, the Florence 1943 then continued to make his own reputation may or may not have Gould Foundation, Cultural Services of film, Beauty and the Beast, in 1945-46. survived the war. Carole Weisweiller the French Embassy in New York, the helps Cocteau survive through a clearer French Institute Alliance Française and He received negative criticism in the understanding of his work and a closer the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, Vichy press during the war.